Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday August 14, 2012 @12:22PM
from the hey-it-beats-working dept.

An anonymous reader quotes the introduction to Inhabit's article on the upcoming launch of an art project cum satellite intended to be as different as possible from conventional space hardware: "South Korean artist Song Hojun has created his own DIY satellite from scratch – and he's planning to launch it into space this coming December. Song created the satellite from assorted junk he found in back-alley electronics stores in his home town of Seoul, and over the course of six years he has finally managed to complete his space-bound project. Song's satellite cost just over $400 to make, however the cost of launching it to space is going to be a lot, lot more – over $100,000."

Oh come on. I can't imagine that this $400 "satellite" has a propulsion system of any kind. It will deorbit in months if not weeks, and burn up on reentry in to the atmosphere.
This satellite isn't going to be space junk.

No, its the equivalent of building a RUNNING car from scrap, driving it on the interstate, and letting anyone control the lights from the internet. Sounds lame until you replace "driving it on the interstate" with "launching into earth orbit".

Yeah someone should tell this guy that space is only for the defense industry, telecoms, and maybe tiny bit o' NASA. If more people start doing crap like this its just going to lead to expanded launch capacities and a whole new range of non-techie types getting interested in space. Only a jerk would try to put a satellite in orbit that conceivably anyone can use./(sarcasm and assuming decaying orbit or other space junk mitigation)